Maria and her daughter, Christina, live
in a poor neighborhood on the skirts of a Brazilian village.

Maria’s husband had died when Christina
was an infant.The young mother,
stubbornly refusing opportunities to remarry, got a job and set out to raise
her young daughter.Now, fifteen years
later, the worst years were over.Though Maria’s salary as a maid afforded few luxuries, it was reliable
and it did provide food and clothing.Now Christina was old enough to get a job to help out.

Some said Christina got her independence
from her mother.She recoiled at the
traditional idea of marrying young and raising a family.Not that she couldn’t have had her pick of
husbands.Her olive skin and brown eyes
kept a steady stream of prospects at her door.She had an infectious way of throwing her head back and filling the room
with laughter.She also had that rare magic
some women have that makes every man feel like a king just being near them.But it was her spirited curiosity that made
her keep all the men at arm’s length.

She spoke often of going to the
city.She dreamed of trading her dusty
neighborhood for exciting avenues and city life.Just the thought of this horrified her mother.Maria was always quick to remind Christina
of the harshness of the streets.“People don’t know you there.Jobs are scarce and the life is cruel.And besides, if you went there, what would you do for a living?”

Maria knew exactly what Christina would
do, or would have to do for a living.That’s why her heart broke when she awoke one morning to find her
daughter’s bed empty.Maria knew
immediately where her daughter had gone.She also knew immediately what she must do to find her.She quickly threw some clothes in a bag,
gathered up all her money, and ran out of the house.

On her way to the bus stop, she entered
a drugstore to get one last thing.Pictures.She sat in the
photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself.With her purse full of small black-and-white
photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janeiro.

She knew Christina had no way of earning
money.She also knew that her daughter
was too stubborn to give up.When pride
meets hunger, a human will do things that before were unthinkable.Knowing this, Maria began her search.Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the
reputation for streetwalkers or prostitutes.She went to them all.And at
each place she left her picture-taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel
bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth.And on the back of each photo she wrote a note.

It wasn’t too long before both the
money, and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home.The weary mother wept as the bus began its
long journey back to her small village.

It was a few weeks later that young
Christina descended the hotel stairs.Her young face was tired.Her
brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear.Her laughter was broken.Her dream had become a nightmare.A thousand times over, she had longed to
trade these countless beds for her secure pallet.

As Christina reached the bottom of the
stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face.She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of
her mother.Christina’s eyes burned and
her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small
photo.Written on the back was this
compelling invitation.“Whatever you
have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter.Please come home.”

1.Have
you ever done something in your past that you are ashamed of?

2.Have
you ever felt that you have disappointed God to such an extent that He would
never love you again or accept you into heaven?

3.Wouldn’t
it be nice if we could just erase certain parts of our lives that disappointed
God…

ILLUSTRATION:

As a child, I used to play with a toy
called an Etch-a-sketch.The
Etch-a-sketch was a little red and gray drawing board full of sand (or at least
something like sand).You twisted two
knobs on the bottom of the screen to draw a picture.If you messed up, all you had to do was shake the thing a couple
of times and you got a clean screen.You got a chance to start all over again.

4.Brethren, the good
news is that it is possible for us to start all over again with God.

a.We
can have all of our past sins erased.

b.We
can have all of our evil thoughts eradicated.

c.We
can have all of our disappointments with God exterminated.

THIS MORNING, I WILL PROVIDE SEVERAL
POINTS ON HOW TO START ALL OVER WITH GOD.

I.IN ORDER TO START ALL OVER, WE MUST FIRST
REALIZE THE QUALITY OF GOD’S MERCY AND GRACE.

1.A
few years before I became a Christian, I distinctively remember a thought that
crossed my mind.The thought was
this:“Even if I became a Christian,
God would never love me nor except me into heaven because of the past sins that
I had committed.”

2.For
years, I looked at God as an unforgiving and unmerciful God who took pleasure
in punishing people.

3.However,
as I began reading the Bible, I discovered that God is exactly the opposite of
what I thought He was.God is not an
unmerciful and unforgiving God, instead, He is a merciful and forgiving God who
does not enjoy punishing us.

The
prophet Ezekiel put it this way in (Ezekiel 33:11) “As surely as I live,
declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the
wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.”

ILLUSTRATION:

One night in 1935, Mayor LaGuardia of
New York, showed up at a night court in the poorest ward of the city.The judge of that district had a reputation
for being jaded and harsh in his sentences.If you went before him you know you would get the maximum sentence the
law allowed.

On this particular occasion, La Guardia
dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself.One case involved an elderly woman who was
caught stealing bread to feed her grandchildren.La Guardia said after she pleaded guilty to the crime, “I have to
punish you.Ten dollars or ten days in
jail.”It was obvious she couldn’t
pay.

So the judge out of his own pocket paid
the fine for her.He then fined
everyone in the courtroom 50 cents for living in a city “where a person has to
steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat.”The hat was passed around, and the woman left the courtroom with
her fine paid and an additional $47.50 in her purse.

Solely out of the goodness of his heart,
the Mayor of New York helped the woman who could not help herself.He gave her the opportunity to pay her debts
and start all over again.

4.God
is this kind of judge.He has
mercifully paid our penalty for sin and has given us the opportunity to start
all over again.

5.God
is a merciful God.

(Ephesians
2:4) tells us that God is “rich in mercy”

(1
Peter 1:3) says that God has “great mercy.”

In the
136th Psalm, 26 times it says, “His lovingkindness is everlasting.”

6.Kindness
and mercy are strong qualities of the nature of God.The Nave’s Topical Bible lists over 200 verses that describe the
merciful nature of God.

ILLUSTRATION:

Long ago, a poor woman from the slums of
London was invited to go with a group of people for a vacation at the
ocean.She had never seen the ocean
before, and when she saw it, she started crying.Those around her thought it strange that she would cry after such
an enjoyable holiday had been provided for her.

Finally, one of them asked her why she
was crying.Pointing to the ocean, she
answered, “This is the only thing I have ever seen that there was enough of.”

7.Listen,
God has oceans of mercy and it will never run out.

8.Before
we start all over again, and rededicate our lives to the Lord, we must realize
and accept the quality of God’s mercy.It will reach us if we want it.

II.SECOND, IN ORDER TO START ALL OVER, WE
MUST UNDERSTAND THAT GOD IS WILLING TO GIVE US ANOTHER CHANCE.

1.During the past several weeks, we have
been studying the book of Jonah.

2.As you recall, God wanted His prophet
Jonah to go and preach against the city of Nineveh.However, Jonah did not want to fulfill that mission so in order
to flee from the Lord, he boarded a ship and sailed for Tarshish.But during that journey, the Lord sent a
great wind on the sea that threatened to break up the ship.In order to save the ship, the crew, after
discovering that the storm was Jonah’s fault, threw him into the sea.While drowning in the sea, Jonah prayed for
the Lord’s help, and God sent a great fish who swallowed Jonah and eventually
vomited him onto the dry land.

3.Let us turn to (Jonah
3:1-3) to find out what happened to Jonah next.

“Then
the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: Go to the great city of
Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and
went to Nineveh.”

4.Although at one time Jonah had refused to
go to Nineveh, God gave him another chance.For it says, “the word of the Lord came to Jonah a
second time.”Even though Jonah at first disappointed God, he was still given another
chance.

5.God gives second chances!

ILLUSTRATION:

Thomas A. Edison was working on a crazy
contraption called a “light bulb” and it took a whole team of men 24 straight
hours to put just one together.The
story goes that when Edison was finished with one light bulb, he gave it to a
young boy helper, who nervously carried it up the stairs.Step by step he cautiously watched his
hands, obviously frightened of dropping such a priceless piece of work.

You probably guessed what happened by
now; that the poor young fellow dropped the bulb at the top of the stairs.It took the entire team of men twenty-four
more hours to make another bulb.Finally, tired and ready for a break, Edison was ready to have his bulb
carried up the stairs.He gave it to
the same young boy who dropped the first one.He gave him a second chance.

6.No matter what we have done in our past,
God will accept us and give us another chance.

7.God is not interested in what we once
were; instead, He is interested in what we can become.

8.Many people in the Bible overcame a turbulent
past, and became great and faithful servants of the Lord.

a.Abraham,
the father of the Hebrew nation, at one time worshipped other gods (Joshua
24:2).

b.David,
the third King of Israel, although he committed adultery, became a man after
God’s own heart.

c.Paul,
the great apostle of Jesus Christ, at one time had Christians arrested and
killed.

9.Although at one time these men lived
ungodly lives, they were given another chance and eventually they became great
servants of the Lord, and so can we.

11.Paul
put it this way in (Phil. 3:13-14)“But one thing I do:
forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward
the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ
Jesus.”

ILLUSTRATION:

One day the police stopped a teen-age
girl in a city in Idaho, after complaints that a car had been seen going around
her neighborhood in reverse for some time.

The girl told police that her parents
had let her use the car, but she had put too much mileage on it.She said, “I was trying to unwind some of
it.”

CONCLUSION:

1.My friends, this morning, God is giving
you another chance to get your life right with Him.You can unwind all the sinful mileage that you have accumulated
over the years.Today, you can start a
fresh new relationship with the Lord.

2.How do you start all over with God?

3.If you are not a Christian, God wants you
to do five things in order to get your life right with Him.

a.First,
God wants you to believe in Him and in His Son Jesus Christ.

(Heb.
11:6)“And without faith it is
impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe
that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

b.Second,
God wants you repent of your sins.

(Acts
17:30)“In the past God overlooked
such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.”

c.Third,
God wants you to confess faith in Jesus Christ.

(Mt.
10:32)“Whoever acknowledges me
before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.But whoever disowns me before men, I
will disown him before my Father in heaven.

d.Fourth,
God wants you to be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.

(Mk.
16:16)Jesus said, “Go into all
the world and preach the good news to all creation.Whoever believes and is baptized will
be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."

e.Fifth,
God wants you to live a faithful and obedient live to the end.

(Rev.
2:10)“Be faithful, even to the
point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

4.If you obey these biblical principles,
this morning you can receive salvation and start a new life serving the
Lord.All the sins you have ever
committed will be wiped away.God will
remember them no more.

5.If you are already a Christian, but yet
you have wandered away from God, then God wants you to do two things in order
to get right with Him.

a.God
wants you to repent and confess your sins to Him.

(1
John 1:9)“If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from
all unrighteousness.”

6.Right now, the Lord has His arms wide open
just waiting for you to respond.Since
He is such a loving and merciful God, He is willing to give you another chance
to get your life right with Him.

7.In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, do you
remember what the Father’s reaction was when his son returned to him?

“But
while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with
compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and
kissed him” (Lk. 15:20).

8.God is standing at this altar this
morning, with His arms wide open, hoping and praying that you will come to Him.

9.I am sure that the Devil has planted this
thought in your mind: "You do not have to respond this morning, for you
will have plenty of time down the road to give your life to God."

10.The
truth is, since life is so unpredictable, you may never have another chance to
get right with God.

11.At
the very beginning of this lesson, I told you the story about Christina who
wandered away from her home and became a prostitute.After she saw her mother’s note, she went back home.

12.God’s
message to you this morning is the same as Christina’s mothers message to her
daughter.

“Whatever you have done, whatever you
have become, it doesn’t matter.Please
come home.”